Lynch Pen | Laws made in political committees

— To summarize the summary, we need now to look at our post-runoff answers and determine what we can learn from the recent county judge’s campaign.

Please keep in mind my political experience - that’s governmental politics - is limited to my last 25 years.

Nothing could have been further from my mind when I moved back to Sugar Creek than the prospect of personally running for an elected county office.

Serving on the Quorum Court as the justice of the peace for this area was very enlightening, but the real education has come from using what I learned while serving and “watching the system” rather than being a “part of the system.”

So you can better understand what I mean by watching the system, during his recent trial County Judge Dave Bisbee saidin the state legislature he “voted for a lot of legislation that he didn’t read” and “that is why we have a committee system.” If the committee’s approval is justification for not reading the bill and simply accepting the contents, no wonder earmarks are so popular in Washington. If the failure of some “good” legislation is a result of the committee assigned to review it deciding it should not be allowed out of committee, you and I are being cheated whether it is done in Washington, Little Rock or Bentonville.

To further explain this process of using committees, let me share a personal experience. After being elected to serve on the Quorum Court, prior to being sworn in, I met withthe county judge and we spent several hours touring the county’s facilities, some county projects, etc. It was a very open and frank discussion and I shared my goals as a newly-elected official which were not necessarily in line with the judge’s objectives. Having had some success in money management in industry, I felt I might be able to assist the county best by serving on the Finance Committee so I requested assignment to that committee. Several of us newer members (there were six or seven new members that term) were assigned to a low-ranking committee, the name of which escapes me, under the leadership of an experienced member (Sheryl Harbaugh) who had apparently asked too many questions in the previous year.

Our area of exposure to county administration was very limited. It became apparent that committees expected to bring their ordinances to the full court and automatically get them approved. There were too many new members for that to work very long since debate at the full court was very limited. Out of this controlled debate, the Committee of 13 was born to provide full debate and review of details of the ordinances. If you know anyone who served on the court at the time I was there, it would be helpful toget their comments on this.

They might remember it differently.

This might not sound like a major problem, but when you read in the newspaper that bill such and such is held up in committee in the House or the Senate (in Little Rock or in Washington) it is evident the process allows, or even condones, the procedure. If the majority leader in either House or Senate (state or federal) wants to “discipline” a renegade elected member of their body they have the means to do so. Dave Bisbee’s admission to his acceptance of the system probably helps to explain his success in Little Rock.

I don’t think it is appropriate as a means of governing, but if you look at the federal budget (or even the state budget) there is a lot of money involved and if an elected representative wants to get their share for their constituents, they better accept the way things are done.

I further antagonized some people by asking how many members on any committee supported a particular ordinance. It seemed appropriate that we should know if it was unanimous or a split decision coming from the sponsoring committee. Whether that is questioned today, I do not know.

Having lost the election for county judge, we lose Dave Bisbee’s mistakes, but the seriousness of his errors was proven to be just “poor judgment.” When the jury found him innocent on two of the charges and twothirds found him innocent on the third, it was too late for him to mount a seriouscampaign for re-election.

Our loss, as citizens, will be the experience of his staff and the changes they have made to correct some of the things that affected our property rights. I remember all too well the Environment Department’s attempt to impose mandatory septic tank pumping on rural Benton County. If you don’t remember the issue, the desire was to require that rural septic tanks be pumped every three years. Discussions with the Health Department offices in Benton County and in Little Rock confirmed they did not feel this was necessary. Also, the Planning Department made the news almost as often as Bisbee’s mistakes until changes in the department’s leadership were implemented.

Bisbee’s administration solved the long-standing feud between the two dive teams and that appears to be working well. Unfortunately, we will lose the administrative team that Bisbee put together unless the new county judge chooses to keep the main players in his administration.

What we can learn from this has to do with how an administration’s decisions that affect us in a positive way can easily be over shadowed by media attention on the negative side.

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Leo Lynch, a native of Benton County has deep roots in northwest Arkansas. He is a retired industrial engineer and former Justice of the Peace. He can be contacted at [email protected]. The opinions of the writer are his own, and are not necessarily those of The TIMES.

Opinion, Pages 4 on 06/16/2010